Encyclopedia of Jazz Musicians

Wetmore, Dick (Richard Byron)

Wetmore, Dick (Richard Byron), violin, cornet, baritone horn, double bass, composer; b. Glens Falls, NY, 13 January 1927. His mother (born Laura Avadna Bemis, 1887-1973) played banjo, cornet, and piano. His father (born Louis Leavitt Wetmore, 1884-1959) was an architect. He has a brother, Louis B. Wetmore (b. 1912), who has had a distinguished career in city planning and regional development; and a sister, Jane TeBordo (b. 1917), who plays and teaches piano and organ.

At age six, Dick's sister Jane gave him his first violin, a metal instrument purchased from Woolworths. He had violin lessons on a real violin from local instructors throughout his childhood and was concertmaster of his junior high and high school orchestras. At age ten, he composed and recorded a piece for violin and piano dedicated to his father on his birthday. At age seventeen, the Wetmore family moved to Newton Center, Massachusetts where he attended Newton High School and studied music appreciation with Henry Lasker.

In 1945, Dick entered the U.S. Army and taught himself how to play trumpet so that he could play in the military bands. He successfully auditioned for the 391 ASF Band in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, which largely consisted of musicians from the Bob Crosby Orchestra. Dick learned dixieland, swing, pop songs, and, most importantly, improvisation skills from trombonist Moe Schneider, trumpet player Joe Graves, Ernie Casceres, Bob Haggart, and others in the band as they played gigs on and off base.

In October 1946, Dick Wetmore was honorably discharged from active duty in Coral Gables, Florida with the rank of Staff Sergeant. On his way back to Boston, he had a brief stint as a sideman in the trumpet section of Alvino Rey's Orchestra on the Hotel Astor Roof in New York City. Upon his return to Boston, he signed a contract with MCA and toured the supper club circuit backing up performers like Peggy Lee, Ray and Bob Eberly, Mel Torme, and Rosemary Clooney. He also formed his own quartet and performed during the summers at Friends Lake, an Adirondack Mountain Resort.

In 1949 and 1950, Dick completed his high school education, which had been interrupted by World War II. He graduated with honors from the Berkeley Preparatory School in Boston and then enrolled in Boston University as a violin major where he was tutored by Albert Spaulding. After a year at BU he transferred to the New England Conservatory of Music to study composition with Judd Cook. While at the Conservatory, Dick was chosen to play violin in an orchestra conducted by Nicolas Slonimsky for a definitive performance of American composer Charles Ives's "Three Places in New England." He also had the good fortune to meet classical composer Bob Zieff who created an original classical suite of music featuring Dick's violin improvisation.

During the 1950s and '60s, Dick played violin, trumpet, cornet, and baritone horn primarily in the Boston and New York areas. He was comfortable with many forms of music including classical, dixieland, swing, and modern jazz. Because of his versatility, Dick played in a variety of venues, from burlesque to the Boston Civic Symphony. He played clubs like the Hi-Hat, Jazz Village, Mahogany Hall, the Savoy, and the Pioneer Club in Boston; the Melody Lounge in Lynn, Massachusetts; the Southward Inn on Cape Cod; and the Metropole, Eddie Condon's, Nick's, and Ryan's in New York. While in New York Dick formed a quartet with Jimmy Raney to play at Birdland and a quartet with Chuck Wayne to play east side supper clubs like the Composer. His jam sessions with Cecil Taylor and David Amram at the Five Spot led to the club's reputation as a premier venue for jazz in New York.

Dick Wetmore was also involved in a number of other musical and educational activities during the '50s and '60s. He performed frequently on Symphony Sid's broadcasts from the Melody Lounge and the "Jazz with Father O'Connor" television show on WGBH in Boston. He played background music for numerous commercials and for Lord Buckley on some of his routines. And he was one of the founders, along with Charlie Mariano and Jaki Byard, of the Jazz Workshop in Boston, which later joined with the Schillinger House to form the Berklee School of Music.

In 1956, Vinnie Burke formed his String Jazz Quartet and chose Dick to be its violinist. Over the next year and a half, Dick and the Quartet cut several records and were the lead musicians on The Tonight Show with Ernie Kovacs.

During much of the 1970s, '80s, and '90s, Dick lived on Cape Cod, playing in local clubs and many jazz performances in Newport. He formed a duo with Tom Tracy alled "Where's Harry," had his own quintet, and played with local groups like the Judy Wallace Band and Link Montana & The Roamin' Catholics. He was also a frequent guest soloist with and occasionally fronted the New Black Eagle Jazz Band.

In the early 1990s, Dick became the "artist-in-residence" at Nauset Regional High School on
Cape Cod and began a program in jazz and improvisation, an idea that spread throughout the Cape and surrounding islands and led to a series of high school jazz festivals. In 1996, he improvised on music composed by Jerome Kern and George Gershwin as the featured soloist with the Cape Cod Symphony Orchestra in what may be the first jazz violin performance with a full symphony orchestra. During the late 1990s, Dick played with the Peter Duchim trio at the Ritz-Carlton Naples, Florida.

Dick Wetmore currently resides in Naples with his wife Marge where he continues to compose and play at local clubs.

Recordings:
Dick Wetmore Quartet (1955); Various Artists: The Greatest Jazz Recordings of all Time: Institute of Jazz Studies Official Archive Collection: includes Wetmore's "Piece Caprice" recorded in 1953 (1983)

Unissued recordings:
Dick Wetmore has also been featured on numerous unpublished recordings. Some of these were recorded in major studios. For instance, he recorded unreleased albums with the Dave Coleman Septet for Transition in 1956 and with the Jack Nimitz Orchestra for ABC-Paramount in 1957. Wetmore was also recorded at many of the clubs he played at over the past fifty years.